Cue lathe question.

Jedi V Man

Jedi V Man

Why yes I would......
Silver Member
Sorry to beat a dead horse with this one. I don't want to waste anyones time here...

Being a woodworker and a pool player, I naturally want to build my own cues.

I have an older craftsman wood lathe but I am sure it is not the right tool for the job for making butts and shafts....

Is it a Metal lathe I really want instead of a woodworkers lathe?

I want to be able to run the butt through the chuck for coring and boring as well as holding the butt when needed. I also want low enough RPMS to be able to do wraps with....

I don't see any wood lathes with the option of being able to run the butt through the chuck like you can with a metal lathe...

Also, how is it you set the taper for turning the butt and the shafts with the metal lathe? Seems to me the bars the cutter runs on is parellel to the butt/shaft. If it is, do you just index the running bars out to make the taper, and then adjust the router in for bringing it closer to final taper and size???

Thanks in advance for your time to answer these more than likely over asked questions...

Sincerely...

Gary V
"Jedi"
 
cueman said:
You want either a Metal Lathe or Cue Lathe, not a Wood Lathe.
Chris
www.cuesmith.com
www.internationalcuemakers.com
Click to expand...

You, of coarse, are absolutly right but there was an article in Fine Woodworking Magazine in 1988 or 89 detailing how a wood worker made a cue for himself on a wood lathe. It had pictures showing the steps he used to build a butterfly butted cue. He detailed what supplies he used and places to buy materials. He must not have known much though as he used Delrin for the butt cap, joint and ferrule.
Dick
 
86 Fine Wood Working issue # 59 had a guy build a cue like that on a wood lathe. He put the pin in early on and turned the cue off that. Used a skew to taper by hand, and cut the tenons with. He used a pillow block bearing steady he made up, with wooden collets made up for the shaft. Did'nt seem like he was going to break any records that way;) , but It could be done if someone really wanted to that bad. Fortunatly I'm not that someone though:D

This same old issue comes up at auction all the time.

Greg
 
rhncue said:
You, of coarse, are absolutly right but there was an article in Fine Woodworking Magazine in 1988 or 89 detailing how a wood worker made a cue for himself on a wood lathe. It had pictures showing the steps he used to build a butterfly butted cue. He detailed what supplies he used and places to buy materials. He must not have known much though as he used Delrin for the butt cap, joint and ferrule.
Dick
Click to expand...
I built my first few cues on a wood lathe. And repaired cues on a heavily modified wood lathe for a year or two. But now it has been proven to be almost as cheap to buy a small cue lathe or metal lathe as it is to correctly modify a wood lathe which will not be as good as the cue lathe or metal lathe when all the dollars and time are put into the wood lathe. I wish I had knew in 1988 what I knew in 1991. I would never have modified and sold the wood lathes. But it is all a learning curve for us. Wasn't that guy calling himself Colorado Slim or something like that in that article? I saw it years ago. My old wood lathes were the same single round tube bed wood lathes like Sears and Home Depot sold back then, like he was using. Brings back a lot of memories.
 
cueman said:
I built my first few cues on a wood lathe. And repaired cues on a heavily modified wood lathe for a year or two. But now it has been proven to be almost as cheap to buy a small cue lathe or metal lathe as it is to correctly modify a wood lathe which will not be as good as the cue lathe or metal lathe when all the dollars and time are put into the wood lathe. I wish I had knew in 1988 what I knew in 1991. I would never have modified and sold the wood lathes. But it is all a learning curve for us. Wasn't that guy calling himself Colorado Slim or something like that in that article? I saw it years ago. My old wood lathes were the same single round tube bed wood lathes like Sears and Home Depot sold back then, like he was using. Brings back a lot of memories.
Click to expand...

That's his name " Colorado Slim ". In the article he said that he played pretty good but I don't think he played very long, using delrin for a ferrule.
Dick
 
rhncue said:
That's his name " Colorado Slim ". In the article he said that he played pretty good but I don't think he played very long, using delrin for a ferrule.
Dick
Click to expand...
I liked the story he told about his first cue exploding with the very first shot he took with it. I have the issue, how much do you see them going for, Greg?

Tracy
 
Metal lathe it is.

I just stopped at HArbo Freight and they have a nice Metal lathe for $1999.99 that will do everything it appears you need a lathe to do for cue building...

33274.gif


My question is, the bars the cutter head rides on are parallel to the cue I would be cutting. Which is ideal for turning a square stock into a round to start with. But, how is one to cut the taper since it runs parallel to the cue?

I see he cutter is on a micro adjustable bed and can be cranked in and out, but it would seems doing that by hand would be gues work at it's finest.

Does someone make one that auto feeds to create the exact taper one needs over the 28" or however long length of travel. Or am I just an idiot, or both...

Also, if anyone has a Much Better idea than the one I am choosing right now, lathe wise, please let me know...

Sorry for beating a dead horse, just don't want to waste $2000.00....

Thansk again...

Gary
 
Jedi V Man said:
Metal lathe it is.

I just stopped at HArbo Freight and they have a nice Metal lathe for $1999.99 that will do everything it appears you need a lathe to do for cue building...

33274.gif


My question is, the bars the cutter head rides on are parallel to the cue I would be cutting. Which is ideal for turning a square stock into a round to start with. But, how is one to cut the taper since it runs parallel to the cue?

I see he cutter is on a micro adjustable bed and can be cranked in and out, but it would seems doing that by hand would be gues work at it's finest.

Does someone make one that auto feeds to create the exact taper one needs over the 28" or however long length of travel. Or am I just an idiot, or both...

Also, if anyone has a Much Better idea than the one I am choosing right now, lathe wise, please let me know...

Sorry for beating a dead horse, just don't want to waste $2000.00....

Thansk again...

Gary
Click to expand...
That is only good for tapering about three inchs. The way you taper a butt is explained in a post named setting up a lathe. You can either offset the tail-stock or you can use a boring head.
Dick
 
RSB-Refugee said:
I liked the story he told about his first cue exploding with the very first shot he took with it. I have the issue, how much do you see them going for, Greg?

Tracy
Click to expand...



Tracy, It depends on the bidders, but a old copy can usually be had for under 10 bucks. Sometimes they come In a group with other issues of the magazine. I have a copy. It's only a few pages in there with the guy building the cue, but there are some pictures of him in the proccess.


Chris & Dick, That was the guys name, so guess It's the same issue we're talking about. In the article he says he played 9ball for a few dollars at a place called the wheel, and that it was alittle cowboy bar in estates park colorado.

He mentions that after shattering that shaft made from padauk, that It splintered, and he had a large red spike sticking out of his arm, so he used maple the next time.:eek:

Greg
 
RSB-Refugee said:
I think I'll just keep mine, if that's all they go for.

Tracy
Click to expand...


I see, wondering if they are collectable eh. Not yet, but they do usually sell for more then the original cover price of $3.75. I have no desire to sell mine either, altough don't know what more I get from keeping it around, unless the article was to come up in discussion perhaps. ;).


Greg
 
taper/bars

Jedi V Man said:
Metal lathe it is.

I just stopped at HArbo Freight and they have a nice Metal lathe for $1999.99 that will do everything it appears you need a lathe to do for cue building...

33274.gif


My question is, the bars the cutter head rides on are parallel to the cue I would be cutting. Which is ideal for turning a square stock into a round to start with. But, how is one to cut the taper since it runs parallel to the cue?

I see he cutter is on a micro adjustable bed and can be cranked in and out, but it would seems doing that by hand would be gues work at it's finest.

Does someone make one that auto feeds to create the exact taper one needs over the 28" or however long length of travel. Or am I just an idiot, or both...

Also, if anyone has a Much Better idea than the one I am choosing right now, lathe wise, please let me know...

Sorry for beating a dead horse, just don't want to waste $2000.00....

Thansk again...

Gary
Click to expand...
Hello Gary, I design, build and sell taper/bars. They come with any combanation of the following, shaft bar, butt bar, sneaky pete bar, and forearm bar with an indexer, [ used for making old sytle VEE points ].
Give me a call and we can see what we can do for you.
blud
830-232-5991
 
By the way, you can also take the handle off the table in / out spindle and replace it with a pulley, a cord and a weight. Tie the cord off on the end of the machine and it will automatically adjust the cross slide, You just need to figure what size pulley you would need. Taper bars are better but I know a pretty famous cuemaker that did it this way for years. He used two pulley's, one for big butt cues and one for smaller ones. He built all of his cues on two South Bend lathes, 7/8 hole in the spindle but he knew how to work a steady rest. By far, one of the most intelligent people I ever met.
 
Jedi V Man said:
Metal lathe it is.

I just stopped at HArbo Freight and they have a nice Metal lathe for $1999.99 that will do everything it appears you need a lathe to do for cue building...

33274.gif


My question is, the bars the cutter head rides on are parallel to the cue I would be cutting. Which is ideal for turning a square stock into a round to start with. But, how is one to cut the taper since it runs parallel to the cue?

I see he cutter is on a micro adjustable bed and can be cranked in and out, but it would seems doing that by hand would be gues work at it's finest.

Does someone make one that auto feeds to create the exact taper one needs over the 28" or however long length of travel. Or am I just an idiot, or both...

Also, if anyone has a Much Better idea than the one I am choosing right now, lathe wise, please let me know...

Sorry for beating a dead horse, just don't want to waste $2000.00....

Thansk again...

Gary
Click to expand...
Sweet li'l machine, I've been using that very same model for 8 years now. Although at times I wish that the distance between centers is longer by 6".
If you need to know how to trick that out for cuemaking just give me a holler at edreyescues1986@yahoo.com.
 
Michael Webb said:
By the way, you can also take the handle off the table in / out spindle and replace it with a pulley, a cord and a weight. Tie the cord off on the end of the machine and it will automatically adjust the cross slide, You just need to figure what size pulley you would need. Taper bars are better but I know a pretty famous cuemaker that did it this way for years. He used two pulley's, one for big butt cues and one for smaller ones. He built all of his cues on two South Bend lathes, 7/8 hole in the spindle but he knew how to work a steady rest. By far, one of the most intelligent people I ever met.
Click to expand...

This is an exceptionally clever idea, I love it ... a real cheap power feed for the cross slide ... cool !

Dave
 
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